cold-blooded
/ˌkəʊldˈblʌdɪd
/adjective
1Denoting animals whose body temperature varies with that of the environment (e.g. fish); poikilothermic.Crocodiles are cold-blooded creatures, and they keep their temperature constant by basking in the sun and staying in the water at night....
- There is a story about a frog, which, being a cold-blooded creature, adapts its temperature to its surroundings.
- Butterflies are cold-blooded and bask in the sun to raise their body temperatures.
2Without emotion or pity; deliberately cruel or callous: a cold-blooded murder...
- He is also a cruel, cold-blooded, wicked, sadistic, brutal, ruthless and evil person.
- It was a cold-blooded and brutal murder of people who were running away.
- The cold-blooded murder galvanized the public AND the authorities.
Synonyms
cruel, savage, brutal, callous, barbaric, barbarous, sadistic, inhuman, pitiless, merciless, ruthless, unforgiving, unpitying, inhumane, unfeeling, uncaring, heartless;
hard, severe, harsh, austere, cold, cold-hearted, unsympathetic, unemotional, unfriendly, uncharitable, hard-hearted, stony-hearted, with a heart of stone
informal hard-boiled, hard-nosed, thick-skinned
Derivatives
cold-bloodedly
/ adverb ...- He acted cold-bloodedly and could do the same thing to me or, more importantly, my family.
- But there are solid grounds for believing that the police deliberately set off on a mission of assassination and cold-bloodedly murdered him in his bed.
- In this country, in any part of the world, the law should be if you cold-bloodedly take a life, then you deserve to have your own taken in punishment.
cold-bloodedness
/ noun ...- Meanwhile his wife reflects on the cold-bloodedness of writers: ‘She had always hated this use of other people's tragedies, other people's sanctities.’
- The ‘Angel’ has to grapple with the guilt of exposing his son to the terrors and cold-bloodedness of the mob world.
- I read these things with a certain amount of cold-bloodedness, I have to admit.